A six-person delegation of the Chinese church attended the 14th Conference on World Mission and Evangelism held in Arusha, Tanzania, on March 8-13, 2018.
The team included three formal representatives and three young people who engage in the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute 2018 in accompaniment of the conference.
The Chinese delegation joined in activities including plenaries on theological education and interfaith dialogue, and women and young ministries shows. In addition, they shared stories of the Chinese church and how the church promotes its development through theological education and social service.
As a representative of the church in Asia, Rev. Lin Manhong, associate general secretary of the CCC, reflected on the theme that mission is contextual and prophetic via the exciting experiences of Chinese Christians.
In the opening ceremony, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said that this conference is a milestone in modern church history and called on all the participants to identify the direction of the mission of the church.
The first conference was conducted in 1910 when around 1,000 participants from different countries, churches, and missionary societies gathered in Edinburgh, seen as the beginning of the modern Protestant Christian ecumenical movement.
When the International Missionary Council (IMC), one of the outcomes of Edinburgh, merged with the World Council of Churches in 1961, the conference became one of CCC's agenda, second to the WCC Assembly, according to the official website of the WCC. Based on the rules of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME), the CWME conference is usually hosted once in between two WCC assemblies.
This year 1,024 people joined in the conference, the highest number in its history. It has gathered representatives of the WCC member churches and relevant missionary organizations, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, World Evangelical Alliance, and the Lausanne Movement.
The conference received letters and videos of congratulation from Pope Francis of the Catholic Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
- Translated by Karen Luo
